


NOT TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU ARE WITH IS A CRIME

by coffinofachimera



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Free Verse Poetry, Grief/Mourning, Harry-centric, Healing, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 12:05:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18260927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffinofachimera/pseuds/coffinofachimera
Summary: “I’ve missed you.” Quiet honesty, enough grit in his voice to make him bad at being of comfort. But his eyes are warm, and Harry can’t look away. It’s just a small crease between his brows, but it tells the story of everything. Everything Harry doesn’t want to say or make real. “I’ve been hard on you.”





	NOT TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU ARE WITH IS A CRIME

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something quick I wanted to write based on [this](https://66.media.tumblr.com/1128ce13262fbb6f041fac30272b70de/tumblr_poqitoVReQ1xe518bo1_500.jpg) picture of Harry at the Tracey Emin exhibition.

The scale by which healing was measured could never be deciphered. And so Harry could never really see. Scalpel slice for the scraped knee, band-aid for the broken bone. A doctor with no degree. A nurse with no control of the needle. Every wounded bird died in his palm, his intentions left unfulfilled, and his ego ruptured beyond a distinguishable shape one could ever comprehend.

It happened again.

“I’m talking about loss.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t fucking know. You always fucking do this you try to make it out like we’re about to have a conversation and all you fucking do i-is you there like a brick wall, there’s not a single fucking word I say that’s— that gets through to you. You’re not fucking listening to me.”

“Yes I am!”

“No, you’re fucking not! You’ve got a little queue set up of your little fucking Pinterest quotes, your fucking Malibu ‘zen’ bullshit! And I’m supposed to tip me fucking hat like you did me a fucking favor!”

“You’re n—!”

“Oh _fuck_ off! _Fuck you!_ Get the _fuck_ away from me!”

The thing about desire is that it misses its mark. There’s no accuracy in Harry’s blind swing of the bat. And so Louis gets mad. Harry isn’t trying, he says. And Harry just doesn't know what to say back. Days after a fight he’ll say he’s sorry with feeling. Louis won’t remember what he’s asking forgiveness for, and Harry won’t remember the days between the accusation and the apology. It’s a bummer to feel less a person and more of an occupied space when Louis tells him,

“It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize to me, love, you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s me, alright? I’m being a dick, I’ve been upset. I’m sorry.”

Because Harry wanted accountability. The leather lashes to turn the skin wilted with a lesson. Purpose, direction for a hardware flaw. But Louis just forgave. And he forgot. By the time Harry was the person he wanted to be, Louis needed someone else. Harry swore it was never him.

“Don’t you have somewhere else you need to be?”

What was that supposed to fucking mean? The house would always go quiet. And no one ever got to feeling better.

They live persons apart because he can’t keep up the pace. Louis’s skin strips down to the nerve the more his grief eats away at him, but by the time Harry’s gone soft to slip between the cracks Louis’s shell comes back hard and mean. And Harry’s just left sensitive and useless. Exhausted in his empathy, in the bruises every argument beats into his self esteem. Too tired to love the way he wants to. There’s no way to love at all. Snow stacks outside on linear soil, burying the green beneath a white mound. And he’ll hear,

“You gonna fucking stand there all day watching me?”

Louis’s talking about the cooking, the cleaning, the prescription medication, the hovering during every phonecall and the silence guarded after every word. Of eulogies drafted without a beta willing to read, of Bibles verses and vomit and funeral bills in envelopes he has to keep. Everyone stops crying after the third day. And no one ever speaks. No one moves around to make a mess Harry can clean to avoid touching the elephant in the room. Someone still needs to cook, though. But no one wants to eat. There’s nothing but waiting. There’s nothing but waiting and meals.

“If you’re not gonna fucking do anything then leave, fucking Christ.”

Harry’s been defibrillating in sit-ups and sweet potato fries, face masks and treadmills, shepherd’s pie, manicure in an empty nail salon on a Sunday where no one recognized his face. Living On My Own by Freddie Mercury. People spread condolences to him like disease, and he can’t stand to be around anyone he knows. England has him shackled, responsibility too strong in the soil to make him jet off the way he knows is expected of him. That’s hurting him real bad. No one to talk to, save for a familiar stranger passing through the city to fill the space his silence otherwise leaves. A distant someone. And then more nobodies. Nobodies and food. A nobody and his food, and a to-do list, and an empty space in the marital bed he hasn’t slept on in five days. Doesn’t feel right, nothing but malaise to pass the time.

Harry thinks he might die if he lets himself cry again, like the first day of the night call. If he becomes aware of a state of existing at all he’ll go blind in a supernova’s light beam before an explosion rips the meat from his bones. How could he let that be? The house would be a mess if he weren’t around. Someone’s gotta clean. Someone’s gotta feed the dog. Some one. Some thing.

The truth is Harry doesn't know what to do without him. He lingers without aim. The ghost in the walls, the emotion left gliding with no place to stay, the letter left unsent. Hesitant. It isn’t a home in absence. His love is harbored in vain. There’s no rest in senseless death, and no mercy on the third party left without permission to ease the pain.

But still. Harry stays in place. Because not to love the person you are with is a crime, of the worst kind, and a vow he promised he would never forsake.

The first thing Louis did when he got home was eat the homemade vanilla meringue cookies Harry left sitting on the counter.

“Did I wake you?”

Harry’s in his bathrobe, arms crossed in the cold. Shivering palms under his armpits keep him from looking as terrified, excited, lamentful as he is. He’s sorry every time he looks at Louis, and he never wants to feel it. Now especially. He just walks over with a little smile, a few feet away from Louis at the kitchen counter.

“Did you make these?”

“Yeah.”

Louis looks at the tupperware bowl, fingers dancing around the powdery sweets. Mouth full with a nod. “They taste good. Really good.”

“Thank you.”

And they don’t say anything. Harry reads him for a discarded diagnosis and Louis doesn’t look, still chewing up some food to keep occupied and silent. Against his own will. Then he pushes it— gaze pulled away from the marble countertop and into eye contact with his other half. “So were you asleep?”

And Harry can see Louis hasn’t in days. Eye sockets a deep, purpled gray down to his cheekbones. Eyeballs a little pink from doing that thing he hates. The wine in Harry’s stomach stirs, his brow giving a twitch. No, “I can’t sleep.” A promise. Hasn’t touched anything he’s been cooking compulsively. There’s only ever alcohol splashing against the acid in his stomach. Drunk in a minute. Passed out for a second. And that’s the most he allows.

“C’mere.”

It feels like his feet are touching the ground for the first time. He’s only inches from Louis now, his side against the edge of the counter, close enough for Louis to place his hand on his cheek. Kitchen light behind Louis keeping his face dark. And Harry can hear him breathe,

“I’ve missed you.” Quiet earnesty, enough grit in his voice to make him bad at being of comfort. But his eyes are warm, and Harry can’t look away. It’s just a small crease between his brows, but it tells the story of everything. Everything Harry doesn’t want to say or make real. “I’ve been hard on you.”

He grabs his wrist with both hands. “It’s okay.” A little kiss to his palm before leaning his cheek into his palm again. “It’s okay.”

 “I’ve been hard on you...” Says it again because he doesn’t want it to be. All he does he look at him, drained enough to confess sins Harry would rather forget. Taking him in with a softness he hasn’t spared him in days. “And I haven’t been fair… I’m sorry.”

That means, ‘knock knock’. A place to pay damages and settle what sits out of place. Hopeless. Restoration fees. And Harry gets a gut feeling. More of a kick. A split second in a cold sweat that carries adrenaline with no warning. He’s lawless when he has things to say. Portion control is tricky. Too much medicine turns to poison. Harry’s got a lethal dose behind a bitten lip.

Arms around him instead. “It’s okay…” again, instead. Louis’s come up to his waist, face in the space at Harry’s neck. And Harry’s trembling, a warm squeeze and a tight grip. “I missed you, sweet boy…” He doesn’t smell good. Cold sweat gone dry on the skin and nicotine smoke on his clothes. Harry keeps nuzzling into it, breathing him, kissing his hairy cheek.

I-love-you’s in nuzzles, nose touching. Harry feels like a person again. There is certainty once more in the dry valley which floods with rainfall. And Harry can make pretend like it’s plastic Fisher Price knocking on the floor. Like the housewife on March 12, 2019, and time was never lost.

“You hungry?”

“I ate.”

Harry pats him on the chest with a smile. “That means you’re hungry.” And he steps back, heading out the kitchen.

Louis laughs. “Does it?”

“I’m, uh… I— I’ll run you a bath! Well, it’s shower first, then bath.”

“That means I stink.”

“No! It means I’m giving you a spa treatment.”

“Oh!” Louis chuckles to himself once Harry’s out in the hall.

“There’s lots of food in the fridge I made! Help yourself!”

Because he made his favorites. He cooked him three pans, nine plastic containers, two casserole dishes, and a cake display of food knowing Louis wouldn’t eat a bite.

“Is Sebastian Jamaican?”

“Well, there’s a few islands with, like… that accent. So… I guess he’s Caribbean.”

“So he’s a Caribbean shrimp.”

“Sebastian is a **_CRAB_ **!”

Louis has no choice but to join Harry’s loud, obnoxious laughter. Not _as_ obnoxious— Harry’s got his witch cackle, face red, making the bathwater splash. And Louis comes to his own defense. Giggling, “But he’s just so small! He’s like...” Tries to scale it with his fingers. “I’m thinking of the kitchen scene, with the chef— he’s tiny!”

“He has _claws_!” Harry’s relentless, laughing and waving the heel of his foot over Louis’s shoulder to be more annoying, though careful not to disturb his lit cigarette. His wine glass is set aside, so that’s less risk of an accident. Harry barely keeps his half empty glass of wine #2 safe from his own tomfoolery, flying around in his right hand.

“He’s— oh, he’s not on.” Louis’s got his head turned to the right to look at the TV they have propped on the bathroom wall. The Little Mermaid plays, Ariel in the midst of singing about her silverware collection. “Right, I know he’s a crab but like… he’s quite small, isn’t he?” Laughs at himself when he sees it’s still giving Harry the giggles. “Had a bit of a mix-up there. It’s the kitchen scene!”

“The kitchen scene!”

“He was squishy! That’s what it was!” And he snorts, bringing his cigarette up to his lips. “At least I sort of remember he was.”

No smoking inside the house. But Harry allows it. He wanted to offer Louis a few joints but Louis rejected the hassle, asking instead that they get to cuddling in the bathtub right away. Harry picked a bath bomb, some candles, some wine, some cigarettes. Setting the scene in soap and suds. But the little mermaid was Louis’s idea, maybe in the spirit of splashing water. They tangle legs but it’s Harry doing the tangling. The drunker one, wagging his knees side to side with his feet planted on the bottom of the tub. Louis pays more attention to the movie.

_“Flounder, why can't you just tell me what this is all about?”_

_“You'll see. It's a surprise.”_

“That’s you with me.”

_“Oh, Flounder— Flounder you're the best!”_

Flounder’s presented Ariel with a statue of Eric, the human prince she’s decided to fall madly in love with on sight and without a word shared. She fawns over him on the ocean floor in complete adoration, swimming round. It’s a pathetic premise, but Harry’s ecstatic at the comparison with that wide smile, eyes at the flatscreen.

 _“It looks just like him. It even has his eyes. ‘Why, Eric, run away with you? This is all so_ — _so sudden. . . .’”_

“You think I’d have a statue dedicated to you in my bedroom?”

“Yes. I expect it of you.”

Harry furrows his brow with a smirk, moving forward from his corner of the tub to pull Louis’s legs down flat and somewhat straddle him. Splish splash. His hair is wet, wine in his hand. “You’re crazy if you think I’d ever keep a statute of you in my room.”

Louis snorts. “I see..” Smiles up at Harry.

“I’d keep it in the living room.”

And that delights him. A big grin, high squeal. “Oh, I like that!”

“I’d make everybody see it the second they walked in through the door. Like the statue of David. Maybe—” he gasps, dimpled cheeks with wide eyes. “ _Maybe_ , I might even get it for your _birthday_!”

“Oh wow!”

Such goofballs. They get to kissing and playing rough, splashing soapy water through giggles. And Harry drops his wine glass on the floor by accident, making for even more comedic material.

“Are you drunk?”

“No way!” Harry smashes his face against Louis’s and drags his lips over his nose, eyes.

“Hold on, did you—” Louis turns his head from Harry and puts his cigarette between his lips, taking a drag and watching for the tip to turn red. “Mm.” Pulls it back out. Exhales away from Harry’s face. “Was worried you got me ciggie wet.”

“I brought more.” Harry bends over the edge of the bathtub to reach for Louis’s pack of cigarettes, his knee pressing into Louis’s thigh.

“Ow!”

A hot pink lighter beside a pack of Marlboro that’s smashed and half empty. Harry’s an absolute genius, keeping a towel right beside the two so he can dry his hands before taking custody.

“Uh oh.”

“What?”

Louis’s looking at the TV when Harry’s sitting upright again.

“Oh.”

It feels like being sober. The scene where Ariel’s father blasts her collection of human artifacts to pieces with his trident. That’s a parallel. Harry’s chest squeezes tight between his ribs at the thought of that making an impression on Louis. He’s holding the cigarette box in one hand, lighter in the other, grip as hard as his heart under his skin. Looking stupid and obvious about the turmoil by the haze in his eyes. Eric’s statue gets blown to a pile of rubble on the bed of the ocean, and Ariel weeps for what she’s lost. _“That’s you and me.”_ Isn't it?

_“Poor child.”_

_“Poor, sweet child.”_

_“She has a very serious problem”_

“God, it’s so cheesy…”

Harry’s relieved when he hears Louis giggle. But when he turns his head to see he’s sunken a little, both elbows over the edge of the bathtub, the water higher up to his chest his expression goes slump all the same. He can afford it without Louis looking at him.

“This movie’s so dark for a kid’s movie.”

 _Is that why you picked it?_ Harry could agree and comment on Ursula getting stabbed to death with a trident, but then he’d want to take it off and feel sick that he can’t. “You remember much of it?”

“Eh I remember a bit. I only picked cos of, um…” He takes a drag from his cigarette, and it’s nearly down to the end. Blowing out, tapping ashes to the glass tray on the tile floor. “The song… doo-doo-do dum dum…”

“Under The Sea!” Harry says. Sits there stupid with the refill held up in his hands, anxious without the symptoms. Being drunk without the buzz is feeling sick, but Harry doesn’t want to show. He gets off from Louis’s chest and slides back to his spot on the other side of the spacious tub. “That’s a classic.”

And Louis grins. “Fucking love that song. And the one on the little boat, Kiss The Girl.”

“There’s only, like, two songs in this movie.”

“Plus she reminds me of you,” he tells him, taking another puff from the tiny cigarette. Harry’s still holding the Marlboro pack and lighter in his hands so he tosses it over the edge to the floor. And he’s drunk, and nauseous, and horribly flattered by a statement Louis’s actually told him a dozen times over. Circumstances make it feel like an entirely different planet they inhabit, nothing familiar anymore. So it feels new. It feels beautiful. Like the first time, lying all the time to impress and make each other fall in love.

“I’m your little mermaid?” Eyes cast down with a smile to be bashful the way cartoons do it. Both hands under the soapy water, hands reaching up to pour whatever he can well in his palms to pour over his chest and neck.

“You are me little mermaid. I’m no fucking prince, though.”

Break in character; Harry slaps the water. “Yes you are!”

“No.”

“No wait, yeah. You’re, um… king. King Louis.” He laughs. “You’re not a prince.”

“Your father’s supposed to be the king if you’re Ariel.”

“It doesn’t have to be accurate! I’m not half fish, I don’t have that many sisters.”

“I guess I don’t either.”

Being mortified can easily look like being shitfaced. Harry just kind of looks like he wants to sneeze when Louis says it.

“Aw, this scene’s cool. The animation’s sick.”

Ariel’s sacrificing her voice to be with Eric. _What have you got to offer?_ Harry to himself.

“This one’s out. Let me—”

He reaches around the floor, water on his arms running down to the towel where he smacks his wet hands dry before he grabs Louis’s lighter and cigarettes. When he’s straddling Louis’s hips gently again, tools at hand, Louis takes the hint to put his cigarette out on the ashtray and opening up when Harry’s poking an unlit cigarette to his lips. He lets it through and pinches it between his fingers while Harry gets the lighter to click and do the trick, afterwards back on the floor.

It’s funny. Harry was so peeved about the smoking a few years back that Louis had to change clothes to hide the addiction he barely tried to quit and lied completely about even wanting to. No point in cutting ties with what’s bad for you now when things are already bad. Just gotta weasel in the good so there’s less vacancy for worse habits. Worse things. Harry’s convinced of holding too little value in Louis’s life to influence anything either way, good or bad. So he can’t hold guilt over administering poison as a way to bond. It’s a hand on the steering wheel in a car that was already running on the road without him, and keeps on going once he’s back in the passenger seat. He just likes to feel helpful. Help is always welcome. Can’t go wrong with a little servant at his beck and call.

Louis’s bummed again like Harry feared he would. Such a slippery slope he stands on. Nothing but mud beneath the boots.

“We can’t be together. It’s like in the movie.”

 _Don’t say that don’t say that._ It was a whisper, technically. Harry was too close to Louis’s face for him to not pass the introspective secret. Harry rubs his palms over Louis’s damp skin, getting it wet in the need to be compulsive. “But they end up together.” Tells him so with a smile before drawing his eyes back down to his chest. It is what it is and 78. Curly chest hair covered in watered down suds. “And they make a sequel where she has a daughter.”

“No way…”

He made Louis giggle. Sighs, rubs his eyes before taking another quick cigarette drag and dropping his hand over the tub again. Harry just pets Louis’s wet hair back, his hips higher his lap so he can hold himself above, maternal, cradling him somewhat.

His common sense has him thinking Louis doesn’t look impressed. And insecurity has him thinking a lot worse. Worthlessness and useless means for healing. Louis is heavy eyes and weak breathing, watching the telly to cloak the mess beneath. Takes a drag of his cigarette again too soon and lets his head hang back against the edge of the bathtub.

“You’re the most important person in my life,” Harry tells Louis’s jawline. Their cocks touch under the water chaste. Louis closes his eyes, sighs when Harry begins rubbing his neck. No response beyond a hum, left hand to Harry’s waist. Why would it be enough under the circumstances? Harry’s drunk and needy and shriveled like the pads of his fingertips.

And maybe they aren’t the right words to make for a factual statement, but they feel like the most raw words Harry has sitting in his heart when he tells Louis,

“I don’t love anything except you.”

And he doesn’t mean a different, special, cinematic love. He means any love. Every love. He parts with no piece of his heart for any other vessel, he alleges to the grand jury. Proud of himself for saying so, daring to. Because that makes Louis turn his head up to look at him. _Shocking, isn’t it?_ Harry smiles when their eyes meet. Louis smiles back with hesitance in his flattery. As if his humility rejected such a scandalous plea. Or maybe, his better judgement. The common sense that claims a red flag flaps in the distance.

And Harry wants to cry. “I don’t love a-anything…” Because isn’t that sad? Isn’t he awful? Why would he say that? He isn't looking at Louis anymore when he talks. Wishing he weren’t anymore, regretting every sound touching a syllable from the stuttering torrent triggered from his own unhappiness. How he ruins the moment, how he tenses the air with an uncomfortable squeeze of a pathology. Embarrassed to say, “I live for you. Completely...” Sorry about it. The obsession and codependency of a useless custodian with nothing to offer. Confessions that can’t be reciprocated.

 _Oh, don’t hate me._ What comes to the surface whenever he fishes for a feeling is ugly. _Please hate me. I’m so awful. I shouldn’t have said that._

“Sorry…” _I said the wrong thing again. I did the wrong thing._

“No.”

“I’m not—”

“You don’t know how much I need you. You have no idea.”

Harry doesn’t mean to go numb. But he might want to vomit. And cry, and scream, and die on the spot. Because Louis wants _him_ , the five letter word for ‘nuisance’, the unhelpful Pinterest girl. He holds his arms out for him, and he reaches. Sitting up a bit, left arm around Harry’s waist. Wanting. Needing. And Louis speaks slow and firm like a piano nocturne. Solo. Nothing else in the world makes a sound.

“I-It’s this… this aching inside me, fucking reaching up to squeeze me throat. And I think…” Whispers, looking up at the ceiling. “I think fuck, Jesus fucking Christ I’m gonna fall apart right here.” And then it’s back home into his eyes. “But you’re right here. You’re here… with me.” Smiling at the thoughts he isn’t telling Harry. “And I don’t think there’s anything that makes me happier than that, is… is being with you.”

 _No way._ Part of Harry wishes Louis would stop talking because it’s making him tremble. It can’t be hidden behind a mask propped handy like the sadness can. Volcano’s rumble before the lava burns the land. Louis’s eyes are a spiral spinning and Harry doesn’t want to leave.

“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, and… for my family. I know how much you care. I know how much you’ve done. I do.” And there’s a small wrinkle between his brow, his weight coming closer to his body. Close enough to breathe, “I… I don’t know what I’d do without you. I don’t know what I’d want, or what I’d have.”

He’s never this forward, never this raw. Because he knows Harry crumbles before it, biting his bottom lip with a fidget, looking to the side without a response he can think of. Can’t even imagine saying it. Doesn’t know how.

“You’re really something special, you know that Hazza?”

_Really? You mean it?_

“You take care of me.”

Harry’s face is bright red from everything he holds back. Doesn’t want to speak. Barely lets himself breathe.

“And you love me.”

It does the trick to hear that. Every muscle in his face seems to quiver in a nanosecond and his eyes are welling water, the white flooded with crimson from the capillaries. The second he looks at Louis his eyes spill over and the clear streams run down his flusher cheeks. Face still frozen without expression. Too many feelings he won’t name, none of them he’ll look in the eye. “I do love you…” Just a peep.

“I know you do, baby.”

In a shiver, a hiccup, “I r-really do I— it’s…”

“That’s why I love you.”

“I d—n't know what else t— do...”

“You don't have to do anything. I'm always gonna love you.”

Harry wants to believe in sufficiency. What it means to fulfill a promise and nurse what is feverish and deprived into something whole. But every expectation he makes lines up with empty checkboxes at the end of the day, and he’s with inadequacy embedded in his ego. Disbelief that he could keep Louis. Disbelief that he deserves it.

But Louis’s put out his cigarette so he can hold Harry with both arms and close the space between them, so that makes it easier to believe. The water makes nice, gentle sounds as they settle beneath it. Louis hums, nuzzling into Harry’s cheek and kissing what’s wet. But Harry can’t give the same gentleness. He hugs him hard and buries his face at the nape of his neck. Eyes squeezed shut, sniffing once to keep his breath stifled and bury the bottled grief.

_“I’m gonna love you forever. And be with you forever.”_

He can’t bring himself to say. But he means it more than he can imagine anyone would believe. And that’s all he has to do.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave kudos and share with me your thoughts.


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